She wanted, oh, so desperately, to believe in it, but the grinding
misery of her situation made it hard to do so. Wonders like that
came true only in fairy stories, she told herself; and certainly
she had no cause to consider herself a favorite of fortune.
More than once she was tempted to confide in Evangelina and
Asensio, but she thought better of it. Although she put implicit
faith in Evangelina's discretion, she knew that Asensio was not
the sort of fellow to be trusted with a secret of great magnitude-
-he was boastful, talkative, excitable; he was just the sort, to
bring destruction upon all of them. Rosa had sufficient
intelligence to realize that even if she found her father's riches
they would only constitute another and a greater menace to the
lives of all of them. Nevertheless, she wished to set her mind at
rest once and for all. Taking Evangelina with her, she climbed La
Cumbre one day in search of roots and vegetables.
It turned out to be a sad experience for both women. The negress
wept noisily at the destruction wrought by Pancho Cueto, and Rosa
was overcome by painful memories. Little that was familiar
remained; evidence of Cueto's all-devouring greed spoke from the
sprouting furrows his men had dug, from the naked trees they had
felled and piled in orderly heaps, from the stones and mortar of
the house itself.
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